First line of article
> late-2011 MacBook Pros with discrete graphics >>cards<< are seeing
That should be
> late-2011 MacBook Pros with discrete graphics >>chips<< are seeing

The CPU (with internal graphics) and GPU (the discrete graphics) share the logic board and cooling components. In some fail situations disabling the discrete graphics prolongs life of the degraded system.

Most of the fails relate to the 15' MBP but there are have been some 17' MBP fails reported.

What is winding up the forum is the blanking / denial by Apple of the manufacturing fault and deleting of posts.

we have noticed the same trouble with other makes also which are using AMD or with Nvidia .Countries like India or other part of world where the temperature is high these problem occur early it happen in the second year or if you are lucky it will work fine for 2 years . Hope the major brands will have a solution for the new products they launch.

I'm suffering from this with a late '11 MBP 15. Lasted 2 years to the day and then died. Apple have been conspicuous by their absence and haven't commented on product feedback on the forums despite them clearly reading the forum as they are very swift to remove dissenting opinions. Hoping that publication in Apple Insider and similar publications shame Apple into resolving what is clearly a systemic fault.

Upsetting when my last MacBook lasted 5 years with upkeep, and this one hardly went 2 without having a major failure. I have no problem paying to get it fixed, but this is OBVIOUSLY a widespread problem.

Even if your Applecare has expired, I would bring it in anyway. They have fixed mine free before for things like this when it was 4 years old.

I hear this a lot. Possibly the greatest service any company could give. We obviously are paying for it, but if they charge $1 per device it gets spread out. I got a new iPhone simply because the power button wasn't always working.

And there's the proof that support issues get differently handled from Genius to Genius. Good to hear the Support Desk did what they did. Should do so, when under warranty. Don't understand actually why the Genius didn't do the same.

Mine was an intermittent issue and was not always easy to replicate so I was sent the utilities to test it by the tech, the results were very long PDFs I emailed him. Once he knew I was tech savvy and had a business account, he even had me put back the original RAM and HD and fresh OS X to prove it was hardware not software. He was beyond awesome, spending the best part of a day, off and on, with me. He gave me his direct line and often called me back for updates.

Here is the odd thing. He said I had two choices, he could send me a box to return the Mac to him in Texas (I think it was Texas) or I could take it to the nearest Apple Store and they'd change it out while I waited. I called the Apple Store and spoke to them, explaining I had been cleared for a new motherboard by the tech department on line and even gave him the reference information and the tech's name. His attitude was ... 'We will have to look at it and determine if it requires a new motherboard under warranty.' He went on to explain how 'many things could cause these problems, usually the users fault.' He seemed totally unimpressed I had already been through tests with the tech on line. I said forget it, called the guy back on line and he sent the box. Three days later I had my Mac back with a new motherboard.

Since this incident I always go via the techs on line not the genius bar at the store.

From Apple ][ - to new Mac Pro I've owned them all.Long on AAPL so biased"Google doesn't sell you anything, Google just sells you!"

That's amazing. Times two. Defenitely not good on the Genius. Strange; it seems that there's a total lack of consistency (which Solip won't like, as do I). Strange.

Yeah tech support is great out of Cupertino. I had a software issue and couldn't find an answer anywhere. So I thought what the heck, let me just post it on their support page. They contacted me, spending a lot of time figuring it out (MobileMe / Aperture) They made me go through many steps, uploading a dummy .aplibrary through their FTP server.

Was a cool experience, yet they were unable to fix it. Didn't go by phone, all through Chat Support.

Found the transcript; we had a laugh:

Me:
some things Apple does remain in the States (like video rentals in iTunes)

Me:
Sorry, don't mean to fish for any future products or whatever

Apple Tech Support:
Oh yes. We talk to people from everywhere. I have prepared responses for different languages telling them we have to speak in English since I'm not Chinese etc.

Apple Tech Support:
If I knew I couldn't tell you, but we usually only hear the day before ha. We are pretty low down the info pole.

Yes hallelujiah! I thought I was going crazy - I couldn't find any other people complaining about this. But my late-2011 has this problem for sure.

fsck, clean install, PRAM reset, SMC resets, none of these help. Still get the flashies and sometimes full-stop crashes when using discrete graphics. Mostly my discrete graphics use is just plugging in my 2nd monitor. Not heavy Photoshop or anything like that. And the fans do go crazy on the MBP as well.

Most times I can get it to stop for a bit by changing from discrete to integrated graphics (i.e., unplugging the 2nd monitor), then switching back. This works for an hour or so. But it always comes back. It's gotten worse since 10.9.1.

I didn't mention I ran AHT on the machine twice - once quick, and once extended. Found nothing. But then I suspect that AHT only uses the integrated graphics. Not sure since it's kind of a black box and not much info is provided about the results.

Yeah I have that same laptop as well. Actually never had problems with it. The 2008 1st gen unibody with Nvidia 9400M/9600M GT I had the logic board replaced twice. I had AppleCare on that one. Work bought the 2011 MBP, but did not spring for AppleCare. Not sure they will spring to pay for logic board replacement. Grr. I don't want a Win8 HP crapbook.

Yeah I agree. I did a number of searches for 2011 MBP video issues, AMD radeon 6750M issues, etc., but it would only show me old stuff (like the issues with the 2008 MBP I already knew about). Multiple search engines. Maybe I've just had some really bad spelling days?

Upsetting when my last MacBook lasted 5 years with upkeep, and this one hardly went 2 without having a major failure. I have no problem paying to get it fixed, but this is OBVIOUSLY a widespread problem.

Agreed. My 2005 Powerbook G4 has been a champ. Replaced the battery once, and the AC adapter, upgraded the hard drive. Otherwise it has never had an issue. My late 2008 non-unibody hasn't every had issues outside of a battery replacement. My late-2008 1st gen unibody had 2 logic board swaps thanks to the GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics chipset (the lower-grade 9400M chipset never seemed to have issues).

I can't necessarily agree that it is "obviously" a widespread problem as I don't have the actual numbers, but it seems anecdotally sound. I'm certainly not happy about it ;-)

I've got an early 2011 15" MBP and I too have this problem. It happened every couple weeks since October and recently has been happening multiple times per day. I didn't buy AppleCare and refuse to pay $600 to fix a 3 year old computer.

The same exact thing that happened to your Appleinsider staff member happened to me. After ~2 years of no problems. Luckily I had Applecare and got the logic board replaced. Sure enough, same thing happened a few months later and again got the logic board replaced. When the repair shop was doing their final testing of the 2nd replacement, it blew again, same exact thing. Finally got the logic board replaced a 4th time and so far so good. Luckily Applecare covered all of it.

My machine is only about 2.5 years old and has started to experience these issues. The screen randomly goes black and freezes. Sometimes the screen turns blue. Sometimes it gets distorted.

I've taken it into an Apple Store, but they (and I) were unable to reproduce the issue in store, so they couldn't make a diagnosis. But reading the massive thread of problems, it's obvious to me that my symptoms reflect the GPU/logic board heat issues that so many others are having diagnosed.

This is a design flaw in the computer, and Apple should extend the warranty to cover their customers, just like they did on previous year models that had similar issues. Don't leave your customers out in the cold Apple!

Please keep us posted on this issue!!!??? We require the assistance of some higher powers, being you ;-)

I had gotten a 2011 Macbook Pro with Matte screen, quad core, and was fast compared to my 2008 MBP 15 - minus the crashes and issues booting due to the graphical issues... I'd buy another one if there was some sort of extended warranty.

Please keep us posted on this issue!!!??? We require the assistance of some higher powers, being you ;-)

I had gotten a 2011 Macbook Pro with Matte screen, quad core, and was fast compared to my 2008 MBP 15 - minus the crashes and issues booting due to the graphical issues... I'd buy another one if there was some sort of extended warranty.

"Apple has determined that some AMD Radeon HD 6970M video cards used in 27-inch iMac computers with 3.1GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 or 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processors may fail, causing the computer%u2019s display to appear distorted, white or blue with vertical lines, or to turn black. iMac computers with affected video cards were sold between May 2011 and October 2012."

This is identical to the reports given on the MacBook Pros made at the same time using the same GPU family. Repairing the iMacs consisted of replacing a daughtercard. Repairing the MBPs would require a technician removing the GPU from the logic board and reballing it with lead-based solders (which are not RoHS-compliant but more stable for ball-grid-array surface mounts).

Apple chose to recall the iMacs but has nothing to say about the MBPs.

If this had happened to a run of low-end MacBooks, we'd chalk it up to cheap manufacturing for a college student's first laptop. Unfortunately the MBP demographic spends between $2-3,000 for what they consider to be a durable portable workstation they don't have time to worry about in the field. Most are professionals whose jobs depend on uptime and do not have fallbacks. In my case, a deadline at work was incomplete because I spent a day I didn't have migrating my profile and apps to another, older MacBook Pro in the office (one with nVidia graphics). Those who have disabled the GPU in software (either through utilities or by moving the drivers/kexts out of their folders) have had very limited success. Some have fried their internal graphics (I suspect the MBPs that didn't have discrete graphics have either software or firmware settings that these users didn't know to also tweak) leaving them with useless computers.

People have emailed Tim Cook, encountered clueless Genius Bar employees (unless the employee had the same 2011 MBP), and generally been ignored by Apple. The sole exception is the forum moderators consistently deleting all posts mentioning petition websites, and some posts mentioning class action lawsuits.

Also notice that only one current MBP even offers a discrete GPU as an option and it's prohibitively priced at the top.

I've been using Macs since 1985 and this level of stonewalling is unprecedented. The MBPs in 2008 whose GPUs had problems were out of warranty and still covered by Apple's recognition of responsibility to their product. What they're doing now effectively justifies hackintoshing. If they can't be responsible for their product's quality, the users will bypass their hardware.

Not sure why you'd say that when I lost $3,000 on a laptop because of poorly designed hardware and they are doing nothing to help.

I guess were all assholes. Never mind the fact that you joined just to say how much Apple sucks. Never a good thing to do on an Apple related forum. If this doesn't spell troll we don't know what does. I mean seriously, who does this?

Just because you have an issue with it, doesn't mean the majority of Mac users do. You didn't explain yourself at all. You just said it was a POS. What steps you took, what was said by Apple. Other options you've explored, etc. No, you just said it was a POS.

"Apple has determined that some AMD Radeon HD 6970M video cards used in 27-inch iMac computers with 3.1GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 or 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processors may fail, causing the computer’s display to appear distorted, white or blue with vertical lines, or to turn black. iMac computers with affected video cards were sold between May 2011 and October 2012."

This repair consisted of replacing a daughtercard. MBP repairs require reballing the GPU. Apple recalled the iMacs but claims no pattern to the issues with the MBPs.

My employer requires (and purchases) 3 year warranties on its hardware so mine returned with a logic board swap inside 48 hours. I haven't switched back to it yet but I'm understandably suspicious.

I've used Macs since 1985 and this selective stonewalling on a documented problem whose cause is well known is unprecedented. Worse, it affects the people whose jobs rely on uptime and tells them they should expect nothing. Like it or not, Apple's making the strongest imaginable case for hackintoshing, and too much of their revenue comes from hardware sales for that to be good in the long term.

Just lost a mid 2010 MBP to a failed mainboard after some heavy lifting. Would only boot to a gray screen after POST and would not boot from any device, internal, external or networked and would not accept any keystrokes whatsoever. Repair is about 600$ in parts alone. Not happy. But at least I didn't waste money on Applecare that would only just have expired half a year ago.